If your cat is not eating, you need to determine if there is a problem with his diet or if the cat is sick. Some reasons why my healthy cat wont eat or drink:

• The food is spoiled.• Ants or other insects are in the food.• You bought the wrong flavor.• There is competition at the food bowl.• People food or treats have affected his appetite.• The food bowl is in a bad location.• The cat has been hunting and eating prey or snacking at aneighbor’s house.

If none of these reasons is valid, it is likely the cat is sick. Reasons why a sick cat may not eat include:

• The cat is congested and cannot smell the food.• The cat has a fever, causing a loss of appetite.• Bad teeth or other dental disease is affecting the cat’s ability to eat.• Liver or other gastrointestinal disease is causing nausea.• The cat is dehydrated and too weak to eat.

In this case: what kind of food should my cat eat? what is the best cat food?

Sick cats do not eat well, so it is important to encourage them. Offer yummy foods, such as canned cat food, tuna fish, deli meat or meat baby food. Lightly warming the food for a few seconds in a microwave oven can help build a cat’s appetite by increasing the food’s aroma. Hand-feeding, talking gently and petting the cat can stimulate eating, too.You can hand-feed your cat by offering him some soft food on a spoon or on your finger and encouraging him to lick it off. If a cat seems uninterested in eating, do not leave food sitting out for more than an hour. Pick it up and reintroduce it a few hours later.

When none of these suggestions proves successful, a trip to the veterinarian is warranted. Veterinarians may use prescription appetite stimulants or may even force-feed an anorexic cat. Force-feeding is typically done using a syringe without a needle and squirting some type of strained diet into a cat’s mouth. For cats who are difficult or too sick to orally force-feed, feeding tubes can be placed into the esophagus or stomach.

And if my cat won't drink water?

Water intake is extremely important. If a cat (or any animal) cannot keep water down, he should be taken to a veterinarian immediately. This can be a sign of an intestinal obstruction.

A cat who does not eat or drink can become seriously dehydrated within a day.Vomiting and diarrhea can contribute to water loss leading to dehydration. If your cat is not drinking, you can give him some water with a syringe (minus the needle) or an eyedropper, but it is almost impossible to get enough water into a cat this way.

Veterinarians can rehydrate cats by injecting a sterile, balanced electrolyte solution under the animal’s skin.This practice is called subcutaneous administration. Fluids can also be directly injected into the body through a vein using an intravenous catheter, commonly known as an IV. Intravenous treatment requires hospitalization but is necessary for more seriously dehydrated patients.